A number of types of firearms can be used in conjunction with magazines for holding cartridges to assist in feeding the cartridges into the firearm. When the magazines are designed to be reusable, the depleted magazines must be reloaded with cartridges. Many reusable magazines can be reloaded by hand without the use of any apparatus. However, hand reloading is often slow and tedious so that it is useful to provide an apparatus for assisting in the reloading process. A number of characteristics of cartridges and magazines present problems which a useful reloading apparatus must solve.
Cartridges are produced in a variety of configurations including center-fire cartridges which are typically in the shape of a cylinder with a rounded or pointed end and rim-fire cartridges, i.e. cartridges which have a generally cylindrical body portion but also have a rim of a larger diameter than the body diameter. Rim-fire cartridges are somewhat more difficult to store, handle, and load because the cartridges do not stack in a regular or linear fashion as center-fire cartridges do. Thus, devices for assisting in loading cartridges into magazines preferably should be able to accommodate a variety of cartridge shapes and, particularly, should be capable of accommodating rim-fire cartridges.
Cartridges are often sold packaged in an unoriented manner, i.e. in which the longitudinal axes of the cartridges are not substantially parallel or coplanar with each other. Because a cartridge magazine requires that the cartridges be positioned in an oriented fashion, a useful apparatus for loading should both provide for orienting the cartridges and then placing the oriented cartridges into the magazine.
Certain magazines require that cartridges be positioned into the magazine in a particular manner. Specifically, magazines for use with rim-fire cartridges often require that the cartridges be (1) inserted into the magazine one-at-a-time, i.e. such that the cartridge which is being inserted into the magazine moves in a direction or at an angle different from the direction or angle of subsequent cartridges which are to be placed into the magazine and/or (2) that the cartridges be positioned into the magazine by first placing the cartridge at a first angle with respect to the magazine opening and then moving or pushing the cartridge while changing the angle to a second angle with respect to the magazine opening. A useful loading apparatus thus should be capable of a configuration which will result in a one-at-a-time and/or multiple angle insertion of cartridges.
The oriented cartridges supplied to the loader apparatus should be in a column of sufficient number that the loading into magazines can be performed efficiently without unnecessary interruptions. However, a device for holding a single column of a large number of cartridges results in an awkward and unwieldy apparatus. Thus, it is useful to provide a cartridge orienting and loading method and apparatus which supplies a column of cartridges in a large number but without being of cumbersome dimensions.
Because a loading mechanism may be used in field or outdoor conditions, devices which depend upon springs or motors are subject to freezing from exposure to cold and/or corrosion or deterioration from exposure to water and the like. Thus, it is advantageous to provide a device which orients cartridges and can be used for loading cartridges but which does not require a motor or springs to orient or move the cartridges.